We asked Matt to tell us about winning I’m an Engineer, and here is what he said…

I’d like to start by thanking the students who made this event so worthwhile. They had a clear passion for engineering and the questions were well thought out and inspiring. The last time I was asked “How much do you earn” so many times I was being audited by HMRC but it’s only by asking these types of questions students can work out the potential rewards which is important when deciding on a career path. My sincere hope is that a few of the students came away from the event thinking that engineering could be for them even if they had possibly never considered it before. I wanted to try and prove that we engineers aren’t stuffy brainboxes and that we have a sense of humour, a good camaraderie and are just normal folk.

I’d really like to thank my fellow engineers who all worked very hard to inform and educate. I was the only engineer without a PhD so I knew I was going to be up against some very clever people. All 4 of my counterparts would have been worthy winners and I enjoyed reading their answers to our joint questions. It certainly gave me food for thought on how I approach certain things. One of the engineers (runner up Dominic) suggested some kind of possible collaboration in the future such was the overlap of skills / ideas and how we could possibly help each other. One of the things I hoped to share was that engineering can be accessible to all levels of education and even we less qualified engineers can still have a big part to play in our respective fields.

I’ve approached our outreach team and we will sit down together and look at the best way we can develop student interest in the Imaging and Research that we do here at the Royal Brompton Hospital. My colleague Andrew Scott won “I’m a Scientist get me out of here” and I’d like to help continue the excellent work he has done, most of all I want students to be hands on and really get a feel for what it is we do.

My winning certificate will be on my wall in my office and it will serve as a rather pleasant reminder of a fun, entertaining and very valuable couple of weeks.